USA giving new life for Kazakh adoptees

Kanat Beisekeyev is a young ambitious filmmaker from Kazakhstan, whose movies are about people’s real-life stories. Almost two years ago he moved to USA and started filming the lives of Kazakh people who moved there in order to seek new opportunities, pursue their dreams and build new lives.

Kanat’s latest project “BALA”, which was brought into reality through crowdfunding, was about Kazakh adoptees in the US. As it was mentioned in the film, Kazakhstan introduced international adoption in 1999. Since then, 8791 children were adopted by foreigners, 6421 of which were taken to the US. But, unfortunately, the government had to ban adoption for US citizens in 2011, because some families stopped maintaining contact with the embassy of Kazakhstan.

The film describes current lives of adoptees and how they feel about realising that they were born half a planet away. After watching it I could not stop crying because of happiness for those kids. If not Americans, what would their lives be like now? Recently, there was news in Kazakhstan about orphans living in the streets because a taxi office took over their flat that was given by local government. So, I compared both situations and felt extremely sorry for orphans in my country and glad for adopted ones, who are loved now and grateful for their new families; but still aware of where they came from, even though most of them were only a few months old when have been adopted. I think, that is because American families are very open-minded and help their children remember their roots. My nation, I assume, would do anything to keep the secret about adoption from the child, not to mention his or her biological parents.

Most of the film heroes want to visit their homeland, find and talk to their mothers. I was really touched by how one of them said that whatever his mother did, he still loves her because every mother deserves to be loved. I was truly amazed by the way they were raised without a single sign of anger towards their biological mothers and Kazakhstan; on the contrary, with a huge love to their country.

This film was warmly received by the audience. During the next two days after the premiere, five families contacted Kanat and expressed their will to adopt a child. In my opinion, he should be very proud of himself because he raised awareness of those innocent children and influenced the decisions of already 5 families to give a new life for orphans who need to be loved as every child on Earth does.